The death of William L. Brann’s *Challenger II two days before Christmas was a blow to Maryland’s breeding industry.

The 21-year-old Glade Valley Farm stallion had been in poor health for some time – earlier in the summer he had a severe case of colic, followed by another in the fall. He was slow to recuperate from the attacks, and their effects, coupled with a failing heart, led to his death. 

One of England’s leading 2-year-olds in 1929, the son of Swynford arrived in the U.S. in 1930 following the death of his owner, Lord Dewar. A racing career in the States was thwarted by a training accident; his first foals came to the races in 1935. With no crop larger than 33 registered foals, he was the nation’s leading sire in 1939 and consistently ranked in the top 20. His best offspring were two-time Horse of the Year Challedon, a 1936 colt whose accomplishments included the 1939 Preakness Stakes and back-to-back runnings of the Pimlico Special (1939, 1940), and champion daughter Gallorette, sixth on the all-time list of American horses with earnings of $445,535. And he was the grandsire of champion Conniver.  

• Frank Adair “Downey” Bonsal was Maryland’s leading trainer of 1948, winning 59 races and $125,000. His big horse, H. L. Straus’ Pilaster, won nine of 20 starts, including four stakes. Bonsal was born to be a horseman, coming from two prominent families that included Redmonds, Lurmans and Stewarts on his mother’s side, and his father, Frank A. Bonsal Sr., founded the Harford Hunt prior to World War I.
  
  As to what made a good horse, he said “its heart,” adding there was a day when he thought he could select a good horse on conformation, but he’s “been fooled too often” and expressed no special fondness for clean legs, sloping shoulders or powerful quarters. “I like ’em whatever their shape – if they can run.”
  
  
• Racing dates requested by the New Jersey tracks for 1949 indicated a commendable disinclination to run into conflicts with Maryland tracks, which did nobody any good in 1948. But the complicated scheduling in the region was revealed with the proposed plan to have Monmouth open June 20 and provide fall racing into early October, but not race during the lucrative August dates. Atlantic City and Garden State Park both wanted to race from late August to late September. Factor in Delaware Park and Havre de Grace, and Joe Palmer noted: “It’s a case of too many tracks in too small an area, of course, and perhaps of too many days at the meetings.”
  
  
• From Humphrey Finney’s The Editor’s Saddle-Bag: December 11 – “Took the train early this morning for Orange, Virginia, there to look over the growing and highly productive stud that Marion duPont Scott has developed at historic Montpelier.
  
  “We saw three stallions, the good staying Bolingbroke, a relative newcomer; old Annapolis, a good sire of jumpers and a good performer for Mrs. Scott himself; and the Grand National winner Battleship, who is also making his mark. The great little son of Man o’ Was is in great fettle, is getting some fine mares and is breeding well.”